


Letters From Lethe

by TheAstronomer, wysiwygot



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, F/M, Gen, Hand Jobs, How to Make Brisket, Judaism, Mythology References, Nymphs & Dryads, Resurrection, The river Lethe, hj - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-21 04:24:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21068798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAstronomer/pseuds/TheAstronomer, https://archiveofourown.org/users/wysiwygot/pseuds/wysiwygot
Summary: Alfie Solomons, returned from the dead, retires in Margate to spend his days watching the ships, writing letters, and studying mythology.





	Letters From Lethe

[Art by [Zigster](https://zigster-ao3.tumblr.com/post/187964120067/a-god-or-a-squish-grump-bear-print-available)]

_Lethe House_  
_Margate Sands_  
_Kent_  
_15th June 1926_

_Dear Thomas,_

_Excuse this imposition on your time from someone who you might describe as a ghost. A ghost who is fucking haunting himself, Tommy. Imagine. But there’s time to get to that — what I am writing to you about is quite simple: DID YOU LOOK AFTER MY FUCKING DOG, TOMMY? Did you do as I requested? My dying wish, mate. See, there is not much in this miserable world I give a flying fuck about, mate, but that dog is loyal. Loyal to a fault, and that is something which, you and me both know, is fucking uncommon._

_It’s safe to say I’ve been a bit out of it the last few weeks, and truth be told, I’m not quite myself yet. There is a lot, a LOT of laudanum involved, mate, on account of half my fucking face being missing. You might notice that I appear to be able to write a letter. “He can’t be that bad” you might think. “He can write," you might muse. I am lucky enough to employ a very loyal maid, Edna, who is writing this very missive down for me, while I dictate from my sick-bed. I tell her to write every word I say down, and she does. I tell her what I want to emphasise and she does it. That’s important, to know what to emphasise. How to get a point across. Edna is very loyal, not quite as loyal as Cyril and she don’t have a bad habit of licking her own arsehole, but loyal all the same. Sorry, Edna. Write that down: Alfie Solomons is gravely sorry for any offence he may cause. Tommy Shelby knows what I’m like, don’t you, Tommy boy? Still, it didn’t stop you trying to blow half my head off. Tell me, does Cyril still lick his own arse when you’re trying to read the paper or have a cup of tea in peace? Bet he does._

_And tell me this, Tommy, have you ever woken up with your mouth full of your own blood? Actually, I’m sure you have. Have you ever woken up in hell and realised you weren’t ACTUALLY dead? Terrifying, mate. Oh yeah, we’ve both done that, I do believe, in the name of king and country, as well as in the name of the acquisition of personal wealth. Shore it up behind you, in the tunnel, yeah? Keeps the other fuckers out, but then you can’t go back, can you? Only onwards, into the dark._

_Anyway, you better be looking after my dog, mate, else I will come and HAUNT you. Not all ghosts are dead. They tell me it was close, mind you, a bullet skimming off my cheekbone, splintering bone off into my eye. You’re a well-read man, Tom, I expect you’ve heard of the God, Odin, who gave his eye in exchange for wisdom. I don’t know if I got any more wisdom accumulated in this bone cage of mine, but I’ve certainly only got one fucking working eye._

_I can still see you._

_With best salutations, _  
_Alfred Solomons._

* * *

Alfie preferred the stricter version of hell found in the state of Sheol to the namby-pamby cleansing wash of Gehinnom. Oh there was suffering to be had in Gehinnom, there was no denying. And there was something to be said for being offered back up to God, after all that righteous torture, clean and fresh as a new babe. But no, Alfie was with the early folk, the ones who said all dead Jews went to Sheol, the hordes, good and bad — a place of dust and nothingness — to be forgotten. What worse fate, really? Like he told Tommy, they were both fucked. It was inevitable.

Alfie turned on the lamps in the parlour one by one, a small ritual he enjoyed. He would bring a bit of light to the abyss, to the waiting place of Sheol. He wouldn’t let Edna do it, because only he knew when the time was right, a certain point in the day when seeing out of one eye was challenged too much by failing light.

He also found he talked to himself a lot more these days. True, there wasn’t so much of an audience in the dim mansion house he had taken in Margate, unless you counted the stuffed birds in their glass dome prisons, but he still enjoyed the sound of his own voice far too much to lapse into the silence of a genuine hermit. A crusty old relic, rattling around the house he had bought — lock, stock, and barrel — to watch the ships passing him by, taunted by the dirty fucking seagulls. Besides, the staff were shit scared of him. Yeah, he was used to that, but sometimes he needed a bit of softness with the hard. Not trembling little wrens too scared to make eye contact. Eye, singular, being the operative word. What did he do at times like that?

“Well, well, Tommy Shelby,” he grunted to himself, as he flicked on the big standard lamp nearest his couch. There was stuffed a weasel on the table next to the lamp, its glass eyes glinting in the light, jaw permanently stretched in a silent scream. “Fucking Tommy Shelby.”

He didn’t think about Tommy nearly so much these days. That was the thing about a forced retirement — old colleagues receded into the life of the past, the time of action and purpose, not the life Alfie had now. Even old enemies did, to an extent. His little chat and business transaction had got the blood pumping again. But only for a while.

Alfie enjoyed reading. He always had, but now the time afforded to him meant he could really indulge himself. Obviously, there was the Torah — he carried it everywhere, dog-eared and worn. But a new interest in Greek myths had led to the installation of the tiled doorway inscribed with the word “LETHE” to welcome visitors to the Solomons residence. The doorway, or maybe threshold was a better word, that had tickled Alfie so much to watch Tommy Shelby crossing. A bit uncertain, picking his way into the darkness, as dapper as ever in contrast to Alfie’s scruff. Shelby had looked sharp, keen, while Alfie was falling into disrepair, like an abandoned building. How was that fucking fair? Had he been bested? Had he been spared? Or was this a condemnation, this new world in Margate?

“Welcome to the river of forgetfulness, Tommy. Jump right in,” he’d wanted to say, show off his newly acquired knowledge a bit. But Alfie thought, he'd already know. Tommy Shelby didn't miss much. And Tommy Shelby would kill to take a long, cool draft from those waters and drift into authentic oblivion — not the manufactured variety from the small vial always present in his breast pocket. Alfie was somewhat dependent on the stuff himself at the moment, so he was aware of the shallow limits of small comforts.

Laudanum, then, and the oil massages he was given on a regular basis, to keep the skin supple, ease the aches, quiet the strains.

After he’d lit up the parlour with the fourth lamp — but not the fifth, weren’t dark enough for that one yet — Alfie sighed his way stiffly down onto the settee. The golden hour, casting a soft sheen over all his trinkets. Put a gloss on it all, or at least what he could see of it. Near twilight.

"Am I ugly, love?" He would ask the little maid who was making her way down the hall.

She peeked her little face into the parlour. He saw the maid’s shadow before he saw her, the light in the hall was such. Not Edna, never Edna, God forbid. One of them girls he brought on to be a helper for Edna. What was her name? He’d been told more than once but the girl’s name slipped from his mind like blood from a wound.

“Love” it was, then. Let them all be called Love — aside from Edna, of course. Truth be told, about the old girl, if Alfie didn’t use her actual name, he was likely to call her “Mum” — that’s how much she reminded him of his own. And that just would not fuckin’ do.

“Yeah, you. I’m talking to you, there,” Alfie called. “Bring yourself in here.”

Love — the maid, that is — padded into the room on a cat’s silent paws, looking appropriately frightened at his question. Obviously, this was the correct response to his query. He’d addressed this particular maid once or twice, hardly ever face-to-face, mostly just in passing, and now he was indulging his scorching sense of vanity just in the grasping hope she’d lie and tell him how handsome he was.

“Nah, don’t answer. You’d just have to lie to me, wouldn’t ya? And then I’d have to send you away. And then you’d not get paid and Edna’d have to find a new one to rub this oil into my skin. The eternal conundrum.” He let that phrase lie there, a warning. With a squint of his good eye, he peered at her. Yeah ... she was the one.

“Would you like your tea now, Mr. Solomons?” she asked, keeping her eyes on the floor. She weren’t much to look at: scrawny and pale, dark-eyed, with not much going on at the front of the house, nor the back. Reportedly, Margate’s greatest beauties were working or on display, or both, down at Dreamland, the funfair by the water. Any of them that couldn’t find employ there had to be the resourceful types, and Alfie always had a use for resourceful girls and boys who were ready to work and didn’t mind bending a few biblical edicts here and there.

“Mm, not hungry just now,” he grunted, “but I wouldn’t say no to one of your massages, Love. One of your … special ones, eh?” Alfie suggested it in a way that wasn’t rightly a suggestion but was well short of an order. Because she was the one, this one. He knew her face well enough, if not her name. She was the one who would rub him down with the oils — the medicinal liniment, on the bits of him that were sore and rough; and a more fragrant oil on the bits that weren’t so rough, but were quite sore, indeed. The girl who worked on week-ends.

The other one, the one who helped Edna during the week, burst into big fat tears when he pulled his trousers down so she might rub the liniment into the top of his thighs. He assumed that her assumption was that he’d waited until Edna went out to the shops to request a hands-on treatment, and partly exposing his member. He didn’t stop shouting until Edna had returned, he was so incensed.

“She won’t touch a Jew, then? Am I _trayf_? First I’m ‘earing of it! In my house and all! ” he’d ranted, ready to bring the walls down with his rage.

Edna, bless her skilled way with cantankerous wretches, said she’d have a word with her if he’d just calm down and take his medicine like a good boy, get some rest. Pants up, there you go, lad.

There had been, as mentioned, some medication involved. The pain that the laudanum killed was physical, but it did fuck all for psychic pain or for the tightness that came from lack of sexual release. Anyway, along with making it a fair bit easier to nod off at night, laudanum made him do things like shout at the maid, and write Tommy Shelby letters, and shoot at passing ships.

But this particular maid, Love, the one who worked on week-ends, had most definitely obliged him with a special request at least once before, and he reckoned she’d do so once again. A special massage would earn her a special bonus, he promised.

“Don’t tell Edna, though, pet. It’s between us two: a special stipend that I ain’t offerin’ her. Don’t want her to get jealous, do we?” Alfie urged. Edna would absolutely not be jealous, but she would be cross that he was asking the staff for special favors. Gives them airs, she’d say.

“But … I’ve brisket in the oven …” the maid explained, trying to beg off of what must be an unpleasant task for an unmarried Margate girl — pulling off a crusty, old one-eyed codger like him.

“Right, you do! Smells delicious. I’ll be quick, then, how’s that. Get the oils, Love.”

She’d already moved her nimble fingers up Alfie’s thinning calves and formerly strong thighs, massaging his inflamed skin with an Australian oil that smelled strongly of camphor by the time he finished his treatise about the proper way to do brisket.

Fat cap up, of course. Slow and low. Don’t check it or even think of it for at least four hours. Five is far better.

“When you lose an eye, like I have, then, the other senses — they all get stronger, don’t they. I can smell the fat rendering in the pan under that brisket, even through this liniment’s stink. That’s how strong my sniffer is. Could smell your religion, I could, if you’d just part your knees an inch,” he gloated, giving her lap a nod, but Love didn’t take the bait. She kept her knees together, kneeling on the velvet side of a pillow he’d put down for her comfort. “Maybe later.”

She’d tensed at the comment, though, and he caught it. Love wouldn’t look at him, not even when he’d asked if he was ugly, the first or the second time. Kept her eyes either down or out toward the twilight waves. “Done with that one for now, Love. My nose can only take so much of it before it makes me brain hurt. Wipe your hands and give me the special oil, then.”

The special oil was special indeed: made from coconut, with sweet-scented flowers suspended within. He had to trade with a gentleman from Siam for it, and it came at a dear price.

Alfie explained this as he lifted his arse from the settee by pushing both fists down into the soft cushion. Love obediently helped him get his pants down most of the way — just down atop his knobby knees. Nothing unseemly like dangling off one exposed foot. Not with his upper half still completely clothed. What if Edna were to walk in on that, eh? Or Tommy Shelby come back? What a laugh that would be.

With his lower extremities relaxed and warm from the lovely if not a bit perfunctory massage, Alfie reclined against the divan and allowed his head to loll against the backrest. “Yeah, be a doll, then, and rub around my hips a bit first, if you would,” he requested, closing his eyes as he addressed the ceiling. Outside, the sound of a gull, the waves against the sand, men’s distant voices shouting on a ship’s deck.

Love diligently rubbed the sweet-smelling oil into Alfie’s sore groin muscles. “There’s a bit here on a man — maybe on a woman, too, although I can’t confirm it — where a small node gets sore when he’s about to get a fever, or when he’s caught a chill. Most people, see, think they’re sore there because they’ve spent too much time on their arses, but it’s not that. Yeh, that’s the spot, right there,” he grunted, gently taking the maid’s small fingers and pressing them into the skin where his leg and his groin met. “It’s nothing untoward, as you can see from my cock and its lack of turgidity, but it’s an important bit to know on a body that you’re massaging. Mine’s a bit sore now — due to last month’s pleurisy — but you press hard on it. Feel it, yeah? Yeah, that’s right. Rub around that for a bit. See if I drool.”

He chortled at his own words. “If my mouth drools, I mean. If my cock drools a bit, you’ll know to move closer into it.” The girl’s fingers paused, mid-press, and he patted her arm reassuringly. “Nothing to be afraid of, Love. It’s those gentile cocks that you should be scared of. Mine has nothing to hide, just like me. Although I reckon I’m a bit hairier than your —”

Alfie lifted his head to look at the side of the maid’s face. “You ain’t married, are you?”

“No, Mr. Solomons,” she replied, matter of factly clearing her throat and turning her face away from him further.

“Ah, good. That’s good. You’ll make a good wife for someone, someday, with these pearls I’m giving you. I’m telling you: that spot, when he’s taken ill. Soup and bread, every day. And pay attention to his cock, sick or not. Only things you ought to know about how to keep a husband. Or so I’ve heard,” he offered, letting his heavy head rest against the seat back once again. His cock was beginning to stir, what with all the mentions. “You can move onto to the special part of the massage now, Love. Like pulling taffy. Have you made taffy before? I haven’t, but I seen it done. Margate’s most famous saltwater taffy, right there in your hands now. That’s it. Slow but firm.”

She pulled at his cock without regarding it, keeping her face turned away, her eyes fixed on the open door that was framed by sweet lace curtains, wafting in the gentle ocean breeze. Pleasant, that. He wondered if she was looking at his newly inlaid mosaic at the threshold.

“‘NO, NO, GO NOT TO LETHE, NEITHER TWIST / WOLF’S-BANE, TIGHT-ROOTED, FOR ITS POISONOUS WINE,’” Alfie bellowed, as the words swam up in his consciousness. He opened his good eye to peer at Love, see if he’d managed to turn her attention away from the doorway. She hadn’t given him so much as a glance that he’d caught, but he confided to her, as an aside, “It’s Keats, Love. Do you know the verse?” Of course she didn’t. She wouldn’t, a Margate maid. He barely did, having just learned it after his recent retirement.

He was getting going, finally, as the stir in his old man turned to a respectable throb, responding to the maid’s ministrations. “The River Lethe makes you forget, right? Gods on one side of it, sinners and sodomites on the other. ‘Cept some can’t forget what they done and the others ought not — ah, yeah, that’s the stuff there. More oil, yeah?” he interrupted his train of thought only for it evaporate into the air like a wisp of smoke. He paused for a brief interlude as the maid splashed a bit more oil into her palm and went at him again. Harder, a bit too fast for his liking.

She was trying to rush him to an early finish. The brisket, likely. Her focus was on the stove.

“Easy now. Slow your pace. Where was I with the Keats?” he closed his eye again and reclined to collect his thoughts well enough to finish the verse. “‘Tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine … Nor suffer thy’ …” he continued, sotto voce, but the next bit wouldn’t come to mind. “‘Nor suffer thy’ … ‘Nor suffer thy’ — FUCK!”

Vexed, he pounded the carved wood at the back of the settee with his open palm. The verse had left him and now Love would never know why some of the damned didn’t deserve Lethe for the things they most want to forget. Alfie was sure that his own curse was to remember the things he should forget and forget the things he should remember. Like the first verse of blasted “[Ode to Melancholy](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44478/ode-on-melancholy)” by fucking Keats. And why was the maid putting so much elbow into the task? Hadn’t he said to slow her hand?

He reached to grasp her by the wrist, to guide her cadence. She flinched with her whole body, as if he’d strike her for a too-hasty handy. Craning his neck to survey her blearily, Alfie snarled, “Nah, it ain’t you, pet. It’s Keats, got my hackles up. You’re fine. Slow it down — I’ll get there before you know it.” And then a mumble to himself, “Fuckin’ Keats ain’t helping matters. ‘No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist / wolf’s bane, tight’ — ah, sod it!”

Sod Keats and Lethe and laudanum and memory and sin. Sod anything but this small comfort. He’d try something else, then, to sweeten the experience. Alfie glanced slyly at Love, or the side of her face, rather. Like stone. He’d bet a bottle of Shelby’s shitty gin that her little bird’s heart was going at it hammer and tongs inside that neatly pressed blouse. Maybe he’d find more hidden in there than that armour-like uniform suggested — namely, a warm tit atop the hammering heart, and he wanted to feel them both under his palm.

It was the fashion, or so he was told by Edna, for girls to flatten down their tits, skim over the cradle of their hips with low slung dresses for a boyish silhouette. Fuck that! If he wanted boys — not that he did — he would go to the alleyways around St. Paul’s cathedral. Ah, concentrate, Alfie!

Alfie slid his hand into the obliging gape at the neck of her crisp cotton blouse, loosening the top button. A deft wriggle and he was rummaging inside her brassiere in the shake of a lamb’s tail. Fingertips brushed against the soft skin, warm and supple in the way his rough old hide no longer was, before closing his hand over the gentle hillock of her left breast with its unexpected but not unwelcome stiff little peak.

“Let me feel that heart of yours — ah!” Alfie faltered. Her pulse throbbed slow and steady as a funeral march, measuring out the steps of a procession to the grave-side. Fuck, what made him make that comparison! He looked at her again, sharply this time, really taking in the details. Still no eye contact, face averted, but the lift of her cheek told him she was smiling — smirking! And never once did she let up on the rhythm he’d set her to. Alfie withdrew his hand and relaxed back on the couch, a new contract sealed up between them, on more equal terms perhaps. It was his own heart which was going like the clappers now. Steady, old man. “Keep going, Love. Keep going. That’s it. Good.”

The oil and the eased rhythm soothed his spirit, even as it thickened the blood in his todger. And then, before the rest of the Keats verse came to Alfie, a rollicking wave of relief washed over him and he was bubbling his release into the maid’s pale hand.

“Catch it with the towel, then,” he warned. “Before it gets all over the cushions.”

Love did as she was told, deftly, with the economical movements of someone used to cleaning up other people’s mess. Buttoned up her blouse again, too, smoothed down her suit of armour, then stood up with the neatly parcelled towel.

“Would you like your tea now, Mr Solomons?”

“Help me pull my bloody trousers up, first, Love,” he grumbled, meekly shifting himself about to aid her in her task. There was something tweaking at the edge of his conscience: Shame? Embarrassment? Nah, the feeling of being wrong-footed — a sort of grudging admiration mixed with irritation.

“Yeah, I’ll have me tea now. Nice and strong, none of that’s virgin’s piss. I’m going to need you to help me write a letter. Can you write? Yeah?” Full of surprises, this one. “Bring that nice thick paper with the tea tray then. And the best fountain pen. In me writing bureau, in the study.” He waved her away, flapping his hand toward the door.

Alfie watched her depart, her straight little spine, dark hair tucked neatly away. If he’d pushed on through her ribcage just then, past that unwavering heart, his hand would have closed around a column of steel there instead of bone — that much he knew.

“I’ll call you Naiad,” he roared after her abruptly, the thought like a bolt of lightning. “You’re a nymph, love. A river nymph, here on the banks of Lethe, with me.”

“If you say so, Sir,” she called absently from the hallway, her footsteps receding to the kitchen.

“Fuck me.” He glared around the room. “You can fuck off too,” he snarled at the stuffed weasel, observing him with two perfect, glassy eyes.

But it was Edna who bustled back into the parlour fifteen minutes later, with the tea tray and the paper and the pen. She had a sharp word for him about whether he'd been frightening the maid again. Seemed Edna had caught the little nymph rifling through his bureau, given her hell for it, and got what she perceived as a load of cock and bull back about writing a letter for Mr Solomons.

Alfie spread his hands in what he hoped was a magnanimous gesture but it rather came off as somewhat placating.

"Edna, you were OUT, love! And I have an urgent letter, right here, that I need to get down on paper." He stabbed a finger at his temple.

Edna peered at him as she set the tray down on the side-table, edging Mr Weasel to one side with a shudder. Edna were a bit superstitious about his stuffed zoo, another thing in common with his dear old mum, who would chase dogs and cats away from their doorstep with a broom.

"Are you feverish again, Mr Solomons? You're looking a bit flushed. Do you need a draft?"

She produced from her apron pocket the small bottle which she carried on her person at all times and held it up. It glinted in the lamplight.

"Ah, mother's milk," sighed Alfie, under his breath. "Yeah, Edna, why not. Tip a bit in that cuppa. An extra lump of sugar too."

As Edna performed the tea-making ritual they were both so familiar with, Alfie tried to gather his thoughts about the letter he wanted to write. It had been a bit clearer in his brain post-orgasm, before the tendrils of his thoughts had started to drift off. No matter, no matter — he had the gist of it, he was sure.

He waited, impatiently, til Edna handed him the dosed tea, in the silly little bone china cups she favoured, dotted with delicate blue flowers — forget-me-nots, apparently. Of fucking course they were. The extra lump of sugar struggled to disguise the bitter tinge of the drug. Alfie took a large gulp of the foul mixture then clapped his hands together.

"Right Edna! Get that ink and paper ready!" But Edna was already poised, her listening face on, the nib hovering above the virgin page. She knew the routine.

Alfie felt the laudanum start its phantom course through his bloodstream, flooding through veins and arteries, unstoppable and relentless.

"Dear Rabbi Abramowicz," Alfie began, smacking his lips together. He paused, head cocked to the sound of scratch of pen on paper.

"The rabbi?" commented Edna, mildly.

"Yes, a Rabbi, Edna. I am writing, one _frum_ man to another. No, don't write that bit down, love, that was by way of explanation for you. Do you need me to spell Abramowicz? No? All right."

Alfie waved his hand at the paper, his head starting to swim pleasantly.

"My name is Alfred Solomons. I'm sure you have heard of me in and around the orthodox community in London, of which I am a lifelong member."

A small noise from Edna made him whip his head ’round to glare at her, but her face was blank and serene as she scratched away with the fountain pen. He rumbled deep in his chest and rubbed a hand through his beard.

"While reports of my … my recent death, were greatly exaggerated, it seems I have attained a certain level of notoriety … No, no, scratch that bit. A certain level of exaltation, due to my apparent ability to rise from the aforementioned death-like state I found myself in. Some circles refer to it as a resurrection of sorts. Emphasise that, Edna. A resurrection. As such ..."

Edna cleared her throat when Alfie paused to take another sip of the bitter brew. With a lifted eyebrow, he glared with his good eye. Why were all these maids in such a rush?

“AS SUCH,” he continued, gruffly, “although my stature in the business sector … er, in the public eye? — heh — has diminished substantially, my standing amongst our people has increased exponentially. News of my miraculous return is not limited to Camden Town, or even the distant shores of Margate, but extends as far as Palestine itself, where I am told that there is an image of me that has been crafted in stone.”

For dramatic effect, he stalled, waiting for a reaction from Edna. Nothing. “Eh? Did you know that, Edna? Have I said?” She nodded patiently, perhaps having heard this news a few times before. “Right, well. I propose — write this bit — I propose that a congregational pilgrimage to the Promised Land, bankrolled by yours truly, be organized for the spring.”

Edna pressed her lips together so tightly that there wasn’t a difference in color between her mouth and her cheek, a gesture that Alfie wasn’t sure if it meant she disapproved of his notion, or was dumbstruck by the very idea. Either way, she wrote it down.

By sea or by land, was the question. The coordination effort was no small task, and would come at no small expense to Alfie. He could, of course, just take a small group — his household, perhaps his nephew and any remaining family — but there were many members of the congregation back in Camden Town who’d never left Britain. They’d trip over themselves to go to Jerusalem on someone else’s tab, and it would all be worth it just to see the looks on their faces when they saw Alfie Solomons, the baker of Camden Town, standing beneath his statue, in his own shadow.

The medicine was taking its effect, and his mind wandered to the logistics of the trip itself. Perhaps he’d hire a whole steamship. Or the Orient Express — did it go all the way to Canaan? Out of the corner of his good eye, he saw Edna shift in her seat. How long had it been since he’d spoken? There was nothing but the sound of the waves and the ticking of the clock on the mantel in his ears.

“Yeah, write that down, Edna,” he murmured, unsure if he’d been dictating, thinking out loud as usual, or if the words were still only pinging about inside his skull. Dutifully, Edna scribbled on the paper.

As he drifted off, and the room darkened, Alfie thought he saw Edna stand from her chair and silently deposit a piece of paper directly into the fire. Not the letter, surely. Edna wouldn’t dare. Perhaps an earlier draft of the letter, not the real thing.

It must have been an effect of the laudanum because that vision directly preceded one in which Alfie, completely bloody starkers, stepped from the waters of Lethe into the waiting arms of his crafty little nymph.

"Night, mum," Alfie muttered, as Edna tucked a blanket around him and turned off the lamps one by one.


End file.
